2012 Tour de France Tipping Competition

There's nothing like a good ol' fashioned tipping competition to liven things up during a Grand Tour. It heats up the trash-talk and it keeps us up late at night with something to get emotional about. Not only is it about the riders in the race, but you’re competing in a race of your own. Pick one wrong rider and your mates never let you hear the end of it. It’s the closest you’ll ever follow the Tour.

A group of my mates (The King’s Men) have been running these tipping competitions for six TdF’s now and they’ve nailed down a great formula. They are taking care of the backend admin of the tipping competition but it’s available to all CyclingTips readers. No matter how bad you do, you’ll likely have a shot at winning something, no matter how small the payout.

How it works

The way it works is very simple. You pick a different rider every day of the Tour. The winner of the competition is the person whose tips throughout the Tour amounts lowest cumulative GC time. There are awards for stage wins as well as a KOM and Points competition that your tips go towards.

All you need to do to enter is click here (costs $20AUD). After that you can select your first tip. It’s that easy.

Every day throughout the Tour my mate Byron (aka Woody) will keeping track of the tipping competition and be doing the write-ups to get the banter going. I’ll be getting photos of the race and providing daily updates as per usual. Anyone in the world is welcome to take part.

Rules

1. You chose one rider per stage. You get that rider’s time for the stage and any points for KOM and Sprint (+ve or -ve).

2. If the race has bonus time at sprint points, these are also included.

3. The time and points go towards your overall total. The person with the lowest time at the end of the competition wins, just like the real TdF.

4. You can only chose a rider once during the competition. Once you have used Sparticus, that’s it, your ticket is punched for the Swiss Express.

5. You can put all your tips in at the start, change them as you go, or put them in each night. This start time (AEST) is listed on your tip entry page.

6. If you miss the time cut-off or if your rider doesnt start or finish the stage you will get a rider from the Default List. This list will be made up of the current UCI World Rankings.

7. If you miss the cut-off, your rider doesn’t start or finish the stage you will get a rider from the Default list. This list will be made up of the current UCI World Rankings. Riders will be allocated from #1 down. There are some good riders there so if you are befallen by a crash rest assured you will probably still be in it, one gun rider down probably, but still in it. If you are given a default rider and they are the highest tipped rider for that stage you do not share in the stage winnings.

8. You are allowed up to 5 default tips. Once you default tip the 6th time you are ejected from the competition and all winnings are forfeited.

9. A default tip always trumps a future existing pick.

10. Stage results will be posted on CyclingTips every day

11. Stage prize money is allocated at 1% of the total prize pool per stage. If there is not a unique winner of the stage (i.e. one tipper) then the monies accumulate until there is a unique winner of a stage.

Prize Money

The prize breakdown of the total pool of all entrants is listed below:

Note: This is a CyclingTips competition for all of you to take part in, however TKM is administering it through their backend processes and paypal account. I will take on the responsibility of making sure it’s run in a professional and fair manner. Nobody is making money off this and this is not an advertiser or commercial activity.